Travelport: GDS share gains at Priceline

Gordon Wilson, hosting his first earnings call today as Travelport’s president and CEO, says Travelport is taking an increased share of GDS bookings at Priceline.

Travelport officials declined to elaborate.

In 2010, Priceline was Travelport’s second largest travel agency customer, wedged between Orbitz Worldwide as #1 and Expedia as #3.

Travelport’s gains in Priceline GDS bookings likely come at the expense of Sabre GDS, which also takes Priceline bookings, and their combined share would perhaps come out of a shrinking pie since Priceline is ramping up American Airlines direct-connect bookings through Farelogix and these don’t involve a GDS.

It is unclear whether a new agreement or understanding between Travelport and Priceline might be propelling the changing dynamics.

Travelport reported its first half of 2011 earnings today.

Among the news bites, Travelport says its air segments in Russia increased 70% in the first half of 2011 compared with the year-earlier period, and segments in the BRIC region — Brazil, Russia, India and China, rose 3% in the second quarter.

BRIC now accounts for 7% of Travelport’s segments, officials say.

In other news, Wilson says Travelport’s universal desktop, which debuted in Australia, is currently being tested in New Zealand and South Africa and will be rolled out in seven countries in the not-too distant future.

And Wilson provided an update about Travelport’s Universal API, saying 350 developers are accessing the API, which eventually will be expanded to mobile and corporate booking tools.

On a sobering note, CFO Philip Emery says Travelport is expected to take an annualized $ 40 to $ 60 million EBITDA hit from United Airlines’ decision to transition its reservation from Travelport’s Apollo system to HP/EDS.